’Did Feng Bei actually meow or not?’ Zheng Xiu reasonably concluded that she hadn’t.

’Just opening her mouth and pretending to go "meow meow meow"?’

’Did she think I, Master Zheng, was that easy to fool?’

Back in [Post Station Feng Bei], Zheng Xiu had gone AFK for a while on the journey.

A Ghostly Realm constantly surrounded the Mystic Feng Bei. What could be more normal than stopping at the post station to go AFK?

Scarface Liu had tried to shake him awake, but Zheng Xiu made up a random excuse to get him to stop bothering him so he could serve his "prison time" in peace.

Zheng Xiu drank a cup of tea to calm his nerves.

He sighed, lamenting how the weather had turned on a dime. The chill of winter had set in overnight.

Unfortunately, [Unbreakable] gave Zheng Xiu terrifyingly high cold resistance. Even in his thin clothes, the air felt merely cool and pleasant.

After downing three cups of tea to quench his thirst, Zheng Xiu "traveled" out again, his consciousness returning to the [Evil Child].

The swaying of the carriage told Zheng Xiu he was still on the road.

He looked up to see Feng Bei sitting on the edge of the carriage, the back of her head facing him. She didn’t look very happy.

’Who pissed her off?’

’It must have been Dou Xie.’

’So disrespectful.’

Zheng Xiu dug at his ear. Being deaf now, his ears were finally quiet, and he couldn’t be bothered to ask.

Communicating on paper was too much work.

The rest of the journey was silent. With Zheng Xiu deaf, they couldn’t get any answers out of him, no matter what they wanted to ask.

The sun set, and dusk fell.

The carriage swayed and jolted, eventually returning to the front of the Imperial City.

A sky full of circling Ravens was a unique spectacle of the Imperial City.

Zheng Xiu was just about to make a run for it when Feng Bei blocked his path. She calmly held up a piece of paper with words written on it.

She was clearly prepared.

Beside them, Dou Xie looked like he was about to cry, staring at his precious notebook, which had a few pages violently torn from it.

The paper read: I’ll take you to get your ears treated.

Zheng Xiu pointed to his ears and yelled, "Who are you going to find to treat them?"

Feng Bei silently flipped to the next page—she had obviously anticipated his question.

The second page read: The Living Dead, Situ Yong.

Zheng Xiu shook his head forcefully. "He couldn’t even cure Zheng Erniang! He’s a total quack. I’d rather not be treated at all!"

Feng Bei seemed to have anticipated this response as well, silently flipping to the third page.

The third page read: That’s different.

Zheng Xiu was stunned. He stared and pointed at the stack of paper in Feng Bei’s hand, cutting the crap. "Let me see what you wrote on the next page."

The corners of Feng Bei’s mouth curved up slightly. Having been stonewalled by Zheng Xiu the entire trip, she seemed to have finally found an outlet. She flipped to the last page.

It read: If you don’t go, I’ll stand guard at the Zheng Family residence. Day and night.

"..."

Yue Yan pointed to herself and Dou Xie. "Lord Upper Three, what about us?"

Feng Bei’s eyes never left Zheng Xiu, as if she were afraid he would disappear on the spot. She tugged at her black silk gloves and replied politely, "I’ll have to trouble you to write up the case file for this incident. However, please do not mention that I took action. Thank you."

Yue Yan knew Feng Bei was referring to the end of the incident in the Ghostly Realm, where Feng Bei had single-handedly flattened a mountain.

In fact, if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Yue Yan would never have believed that Feng Bei could be so powerful when she went all out.

That level of destructive power definitely reached the legendary "Grandmaster" rating.

’But why can’t it be recorded?’

Yue Yan wondered silently.

Although there was no hint of a threat in Feng Bei’s words.

But her meaning was perfectly clear.

Yue Yan and Dou Xie quickly promised they would never mention it.

Like a pouting nanny, Feng Bei followed Zheng Xiu all the way to the Zheng Family’s front gate without a word.

The flock of Ravens in the sky was disturbed by Feng Bei’s aura, and a portion of them split off. Chaos instantly erupted on the city’s rooftops as the Night Guards were all alerted, trying to see who had startled the Ravens.

"PHEEEW—"

Arriving at the Zheng Family’s gate, Zheng Xiu puffed up his cheeks and let out a long whistle.

"What are you whistling for?" The moment she spoke, Feng Bei knew she had wasted her breath. The boy was deaf and couldn’t hear her. She had forgotten, and her words were met with silence.

Unexpectedly, the boy explained on his own initiative. "Don’t misunderstand, Sister Feng Bei. I heard from Uncle Shisan that Ye Weiyang and the Zheng Family have never been on good terms. I was afraid you might scare them, so I’m giving them a heads-up."

Sure enough, after a moment, Qing Shisan came to open the gate, a strange look on his face. "Er... Young Master, you’re back?"

"Ye Weiyang, Upper Three, Feng Bei. Apologies for the intrusion."

Feng Bei bowed to Qing Shisan.

This sudden politeness left Qing Shisan feeling somewhat flattered and overwhelmed. He never would have expected an Upper Three to be like this.

"Second Lady! Second Lady!"

The boy rushed straight for the east wing, and no one stopped him.

Hearing the panic in Zheng Xiu’s voice, Feng Bei couldn’t help but chuckle. At the same time, she began to doubt her own suspicions.

Ever since Zheng Xiu had revealed that other form in the Ghostly Realm, an absurd idea had taken root in Feng Bei’s mind.

That Zheng Shan was Zheng Er; that they were the same person.

In a normal world, this idea would be nothing short of a fairy tale, utterly ridiculous. But with thousands of Miracle Techniques in the world, what if there really was one that could make a person young again?

But now, the boyish nature the youth unintentionally displayed made Feng Bei doubt her Intuition once again.

’Maybe I was wrong?’

"Second Lady! Second Lady! Second Lady!"

The boy hurried down the long corridor to the east wing and pushed open the door.

With Zizi’s help, the Second Lady was sitting up and drinking porridge. When she saw the boy burst in, porridge dribbled from the corner of her mouth. She was dumbfounded.

"Ah, Young Master, you..."

Zizi saw the Young Master barge in and was about to say something, but Zheng Xiu went straight to her and asked, "Quick, check the tumor behind Second Lady’s hair!"

Hearing this, Zizi understood and quickly checked.

"It’s gone! Young Master! The tumor is gone!"

Zizi exclaimed with delight.

Zizi’s joyous cries attracted others, and the deathly quiet Zheng Family residence instantly became lively.

Some beat gongs, others beat drums.

The Brotherhood members hidden throughout the estate all started whistling, passing on the wonderful news.

"Wait," the shocked Zheng Erniang finally came to her senses. She pointed a trembling finger at the boy, who looked exactly like Master Zheng as a child, her eyes wide as if she’d seen a ghost. "You are..."

Having just recovered from a grave illness, Zheng Erniang felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare, reborn.

But Zheng Xiu’s sudden appearance made the Second Lady feel as if she were still dreaming.

"Er, Sister Feng Bei," Zheng Xiu turned his head. "I have a few private words to say with my cousin."

Zizi frowned at his words. "Cousin?"

The Second Lady was taken aback. "Cousin?"

Feng Bei hesitated for a moment, looked at the three people in the room, then nodded. She stepped out of the room and closed the door.

A few breaths later, the delicate cries of the women came from inside.

Feng Bei was just about to find a spot on the roof to monitor the room when she heard the commotion inside. With a slap of her palm, the door disintegrated into dust and vanished.

But where was the boy’s figure inside the room?

"Where is he?!"

Feng Bei asked through gritted teeth.

Zizi and the Second Lady had looks of utter confusion on their faces. Watching the two expensive sliding doors turn to ash, they blankly pointed in the same direction.

Where they pointed, a window creaked and swayed. The boy was long gone.

Feng Bei clenched her fists.

...

SPLASH!

The Incarnation had vanished by using the blind spot in the two women’s line of sight.

The moment [Divine Travel] was canceled, Zheng Xiu’s consciousness plunged into water. All around him was pitch black, deep and boundless.

Sinking, sinking, sinking.

It was as if the [Immortal Maiden Temple] Ghostly Realm had only now truly ended and been cleared. Zheng Xiu kept sinking until his feet touched solid ground. He opened his mouth and let out a bubble.

He knew he had reached the Path again.

Now that he had some understanding of Miracle Technique cultivation, Zheng Xiu combined it with his own experience and roughly understood what was happening to him.

He was a born [Prisoner] Mystic.

"Serving time in prison" was both a Restriction and a rule, while venturing into Ghostly Realms was the process of advancing along the Path.

The Incarnation was the "medium" for Casting a Miracle Technique.

But at the same time, as long as he was in "prison," he himself could also serve as the medium for Casting.

This seemed to correspond with the theoretical knowledge Yue Yan had shared with him.

However, there were also some parts that didn’t quite match Yue Yan’s explanation.

Zheng Xiu didn’t mind. Yue Yan’s explanation was just one perspective; Mystics and ordinary people couldn’t be lumped together.

’Look at Feng Bei, leveling a mountain with a wave of her hand. What part of that looked like an ordinary Miracle Master?’

As he thought, the darkness of the Path twisted and squirmed around him, dreamlike and illusory, like an ocean of mist.

Zheng Xiu walked forward automatically. The winding road stretched out behind him, then vanished.

He had always felt that he wasn’t walking on the Path, but that the Path was pushing him along.

An unknown amount of time passed.

At the end of the road, a pitch-black door appeared.

On the door was written "Jiazi · Eight".

Zheng Xiu knew getting here wasn’t easy, so he pushed it open with all his might.

In the process of pushing the door, Zheng Xiu felt a strange resistance.

He hadn’t felt this kind of resistance when he pushed open the Ninth Gate.

Fortunately, the resistance didn’t last long. After a stalemate of a few seconds, the door gave way, and he walked through it onto a new road.

[You have delved deeper into the Path.]

[You have advanced further along the Path.]

[You have pushed open the "Jiazi · Eight" gate.]

Last time, when he opened the Ninth Gate, he had learned a Derivation of [Unbreakable]. This time, however, there was nothing new.

A blood-red die flew out from the depths. Upon closer inspection, it was clearly his familiar Dice.

What was different from usual was that this die was clearly the size of a fist.

Zheng Xiu leaped up and grabbed the blood-red die.

The die had twenty sides. Strangely, only one side had a character on it; the other nineteen were completely blank.

The only side with a character on it read "One."

Staring intently, he could see a twin chain saber burning with black flames deep within the character for "One."

This was none other than the "Form One," [Purgatory], that he had completed in the Immortal Maiden Temple.

’Huh?’

’The [Form One] that I unintentionally created at the end of the Immortal Maiden Temple Ghostly Realm was actually the reward from inside the Eighth Gate?’

’How did I get an advance on it?’

His vision blurred and his mind wavered. When he came to his senses, he was already sitting in the Heart Prison, on that familiar Bone Chair.